Waiting is the Hardest Part

Tom Petty really wasn't kidding when he said it back in '81 on the Hard Promises album.

Waiting truly is the hardest part.

We live in the 21st Century and the effects of a fast-paced, fast-food style society. A concoction created as a result of technology's huge advances altering our daily lives. Why drive to the Arden Mall to buy a certain thing when you can just get on your smartphone and buy it online? Who needs to call for a taxi cab nowadays when you can schedule an Uber at the touch of a button? If you want to know who won the Raider game just Google it and the result/stats are right in front of you.

Waiting in 2016 seems so second nature to so many people. Hell even my Pops has a smartphone now (he is just figuring out how to send text messages now so believe me technology has its downfalls). However there are certain things that still require you to be patient.

Ask any man and they'll tell you that waiting on your girlfriend or wife to get ready for a date is bad. But at least you know there is light at the end of a tunnel in that. I mean eventually they have to like something they put on right? The misery will soon end and you will get to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings for the 15th time this week. Waiting for your favorite sports team to end years and years of misery to bring you just one championship? Now that's the literal definition of going through hell.

A championship in any sport is the quintessential achievement every Franchise dreams of. Your entire Organization builds for, plans for, and hopes for. It's the one thing at the beginning of any season that every team wants. And that's why it's so hard to get because everyone wants it and only one team a year can have it. Just ask any sports fan and they'll let you know how difficult it is. Hypothetically speaking even if you wanted to see your team win it all you know there's so much that goes into it.

You have to have a solid team with solid players, your Management has to have a strong foundation, you have to draft right, sometimes even splash a key Free Agent acquisition here or there. And even if you had all of that and have a solid regular season we haven't even talked about the playoffs. Clutch players, not clutch players, chokers, bad breaks, injuries, bad calls, lackadaisical effort at a key moment in a key spot of any game. Even if you come so close and come up short your window can close just like that and your chances are done for another 10+ years to see one. And lets not even bring up the fact that sometimes not even the best team ends up taking the whole thing.

You get the point. Winning a Championship is hard work. However some teams can make it look easy, their fans have seen one, sometimes multiple, trophies hoisted. Other teams? Not so much. If you're a Cubs fan some of you waited for 108 years (a lot of those same fans died waiting to see one during that timespan) until this past Fall when you finally saw it happen.

Then there are those teams who no matter what they try to do it never goes right.

Welcome to the life of a Sacramento Kings fan my friends.

As i've gotten older i've tried contemplating about what being a Kings fan is like. What would I compare it to? Can't go with the cliche of it being in a bad relationship that no matter how wrong they do you that you simply can't leave (that's played out by every lovable loser fan in my opinion). Being a Kings fan for all of us I suppose is a proud, sadistic, twisted, and depending on how you view it from the outside, toxic thing to be. For the many of us who actually have the courage to rep and claim our beloved Purple and Black it's something we cherish.

Simply put it's something you're born into (I would know I came out the womb and immediately was put into a Kings onesie). Sacramento, California isn't the most flashy town in the State. We don't possess the glitz and glamour that a Los Angeles has with its glitz and glamour/drugged out celebs, or the views and sights of the Bay Area. However we do have NBA basketball, the last Franchise to earn a team via relocation from Kansas City before Magic and Larry took the League by storm and took it out of the doldrums that surfaced from the cocaine era and into the primetime slot as one of the Countries most popular sports to watch.

An NBA Franchise in Sacramento in 2016 would never happen, but in 1985 it did and we've kept them ever since (with the occasional threat to move and the eventual conclusion of them staying during that Seattle scare). By me saying we kept them it makes it sound like we are somewhat grateful for them being here. Truth is we love our Kings with a passion unknown to mankind. We buy team march in bulk, we chant "Sa-cra-men-to!" every chance we get, and some diehard fans even group together and plan road trips to go watch them play out of town. Simply put, we love our Sacramento Kings.

I've always maintained that being a great fan has nothing to do with remembering just the good times. No, there has to be substance and war wounds. You have to have some scars in order to claim your loyalty and pride for your squad. War wounds? Scars you say? Believe me us Kings fans have our fair share of them. Picking LaSalle Thompson when Karl Malone was still on the board, Ralph Sampson as a shade of himself, Bill Russell reading the newspaper on the bench during practices as Head Coach, Ricky Berry's tragic suicide, Bobby Hurley's car accident, Game 6 of the 02' Western Conference Finals, Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, Chris Webber's ACL tear the following year.

War Wounds? Scars? Yeah we can give you those in a six pack.

Still with all that suffering over these 30 + years there is no Championship to show for the pain and suffering (the last one coming in 1951 as the Rochester Royals, 65 if you wanna put that old Franchise history into our minds). Some of it has to do with bad breaks mentioned in the above paragraph and some of it has to do with bad choices albeit by Management and the Organization. And even with one of the best bigs in the game in DeMarcus Cousins we are so far from building a team around him that can have us in the playoffs.

We haven't made the playoffs in 10 years and are second behind Minnesota for the longest streak of seasons without a postseason bid in the entire NBA. A long time passed before I could ever think about seeing them win a title. After 02' and everything that transpired I couldn't ever imagine coming as close as we did then to a Championship. Then I saw the Cubs win that World Series and the possibilities became endless. It could happen, and if it could happen to the Cubs (the lovable losers that suffered through all that heartache and bad luck) then why not us?

Even with the way things are now I still think there is hope for glory. I mean they have to do it eventually right? 108 years, 10 years, 40 years, whatever. My Grandfather died without ever seeing one, my Uncle is living trying to see it happen in his lifetime, and i'm praying it will happen in mine. Even through all the bad years and rough things i've had to watch I carry hope. Point blank, the Sacramento Kings will win the NBA Championship someday. Maybe i'll be in my late sixties, maybe i'll be dead. Maybe i'll have kids by then and maybe my kids will have had kids of their own. Who knows at this point, life is such a mystery in itself. All I know is that eventually they'll do it.

They have to sometime. Nothing lasts forever. Not even torture.